After watching a tutorial on Netlify, I understand that I can upload site files to Netlify directly from my computer. I could also send them first to a repository on Github. What would be the advantages/disadvantages of each method? I know there are other upload methods but I am focusing on these two right now.Thanks.

It depends on your workflow. To upload a site to Netlify requires that you have all the site assets (pages, images, etc.) in place and ready to go, then ZIP all your files, then drag-n-drop the ZIP file to the appropriate Netlify admin page. For small sites (including sites that you’re not certain you are going to be developing further – proof-of-concept sites, for example), this isn’t so bad because there aren’t many files involved. Therefore, even though you are uploading every file in the site for each update, there aren’t enough files to warrant setting up a GitHub repository.

For anything beyond that, though, it’s easier to perform updates through GitHub. Not only do you get all the benefits of using a GitHub repository, but you also have smaller “deltas” because only the changed pages are rebuilt. It’s fast and efficient, and you don’t have to ZIP up your whole site and open a browser window, and so on.